How to fix ALPS touchpad on Lenovo Z510 running Ubuntu 14.04

October 27, 2015

Last month, after a lot of searching, I was led to he1per’s repository, which someone from the open-source community was kind enough to point to. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. It was said to work despite errors.

This was unsettling. The code looked a daunting at first, but since I was familiar with C/C++ from my high-school days, I decided to dig deep. It was only fair that I not expect my meal be served to me, and fix it for myself.

After a careful reading and two unexpectedly simple directory path fixes, it would install without any errors, and fixed my touchpad. I was then able to use functionality such as:

Adjust pointer speed

Disable while typing

Two finger scroll

Natural Scrolling

Right click with two fingers

Note: Some articles suggest upgrading your kernel, often much ahead than what your Ubuntu installation officially supports. There is absolutely no need to go down that road, as long as you follow the said procedure.

Do you need this module?

If dmesg | grep -i alps returns something like the following, you probably need this fix.

You should now see the following when you open your Mouse and Touchpad settings:

Restart your machine and confirm if this works even after a reboot. You should be good to go! Hope this helped you.

Settings disappearing after a reboot?

If it stops working post a reboot, run sudo rmmod psmouse && modprobe psmouse in your Terminal and try again. To enable this at each Ubuntu boot, you can edit your /etc/rc.local file and insert the same command (no sudo required):

rmmod psmouse && modprobe psmouse

Ruppal Singh

Front-End Web Developer

I love building beautiful static websites, complex web-apps, and taking on interesting bits in between.